It was announced April 27 that the town of Mhana was liberated, and the town of Kabruk was liberated on May 9. Similarly, in the beginning of June the troops were successful in fully liberating the strategic town of al-Nasr, overlooking the entire area adjoining it and the Kharaeb Jabr village that is adjacent to the seven Hajj al-Ali villages. By July 3, all said villages and towns were indeed completely liberated.
With this, the Iraqi forces now control the entire right side of the Tigris River, awaiting orders to cross the river toward the Qayyarah district.
In parallel, at the height of the battle of Fallujah June 18, the Iraqi government announced in a surprise move the launch of a new offensive on a new axis to liberate Mosul.
The axis stretches from Baiji through the Mosul-Baghdad road all the way to Qayyarah, Hammam al-Alil and Mosul.
The operations were launched from the chemical fertilizer plant, 20 kilometers from the city center of Baiji, with participation of the Iraqi counterterrorism service, the 9th Armored Division, troops of the Salahuddin Operations Command and the Ninevah Operations Command, the tribal mobilization troops as well as the Engineer Battalion.
During the first hours of the offensive, the military units managed to liberate small villages on the way before they were halted at the border of the Mohammed Moussa village because of bad weather, the heavy ambushes and the fact that the liberation plan had been leaked, as was revealed later on by Abadi during a press conference with a number of journalists June 29. “We changed the plan following leaks and statements by [parliament members] that put our troops to risk,” Abadi said. “Mosul will be liberated during this year as promised.”
Comments are closed.